The ‘Connie Chung’ Concept : TV news: Reactions to the show’s re-enactments aren’t deterring CBS News; two special Monday-night broadcasts will showcase the program.

When “Saturday Night With Connie Chung” premiered last September, the CBS News magazine was strongly criticized as a star-driven, high-octane vehicle running down the road between news and entertainment. “Is this a news program or a date?” asked one former CBS News executive, noting the show’s title and opening credits, a series of pastel portraits of newswoman Chung.

More than the promotion of another TV journalist as the seeming star of the news, what was most controversial about the program was its use of dramatic re-enactments. Some TV reviewers applauded the “Reds”-inspired concept of actors playing real-life figures with actual witnesses to the events. But many media critics condemned the technique, saying that it further blurred the line between fact and fiction in TV--and undermined the credibility of network news. The technique was controversial within CBS News, according to sources at the network.

But even more bottom-line-minded observers have wondered whether CBS--which had hired Chung from NBC last year for a reported $2 million annual salary--has provided an effective showcase for her. For the so-called official TV season that ended April 15, “Saturday Night With Connie Chung” ranked 105th among the 111 prime-time series that had aired on the three major networks, averaging an audience of about 6.9 million homes a week.

Today, as “Saturday Night With Connie Chung” prepares for two special Monday-night broadcasts intended to showcase the program, the star of the show defends re-creations and says that criticisms of the show have been overdone.

“I’m angry at the critics and their holier-than-thou attitude about an innovative way of telling a story,” said the 43-year-old Chung, her soft-spoken voice rising slightly during a recent interview in her office at CBS News. “There are many stories that can’t be told in traditional terms, and we clearly labeled the actors and the interviews. We weren’t doing this in some grand design to provide entertainment. We were doing deadly serious subjects--AIDS, hostages, civil rights.”

And her name on the marquee? “That is miserably overblown. All three evening newscasts have the anchors’ names in them. Did anybody make a big fuss about ‘This Week With David Brinkley’ ”?

While NBC News announced that it was returning its re-creation series, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” to the entertainment division after criticisms about the show last fall, CBS News seems to be moving away from the concept without actually saying so. (“This is CBS News as ‘Pravda,’ ” jokes one CBS News veteran.)

Not so, says Andrew Lack, the executive producer and creator of “Saturday Night With Connie Chung.”

“We said from the beginning that we would do a mix of stories,” Lack said in an interview. “We’ll continue to do them as we find them--we just did one on (AIDS activist) Terry Sutton a few weeks ago. But they were never meant to exclude other forms. In fact, the one thing I’ve learned from doing re-creations is how much time and expense is involved in doing them.”

As the show has evolved over the season, it has included news-magazine-style pieces such as a story on a former aide to Michael Milken and a piece on the Morgan-Foretich child-custody battle. Following a story on the Exxon Valdez oil spill that employed previously unaired footage of the ship after it ran aground, Chung landed what was said to be the first TV interview with the ship’s captain, Joseph Hazelwood.

One week, the program went live to cover the fall of the Berlin Wall. And on-air columnist Robert Krulwich contributes occasional humorous features, from an odd early one that put Chung and Krulwich into a video “automobile” to a recent piece on the Ninja Turtle phenomenon.

“We’re finding our format,” Chung said. “Every new program needs to grow and feel its way.”

Despite the attention to re-creations, a more traditional TV tool--the celebrity profile--has recently been giving the Chung program some of its best ratings. And on the next two Mondays at 10 p.m., the “Saturday Night” crew will present two celebrity-oriented specials, called “Face to Face With Connie Chung,” that are designed to give the show some prime-time exposure during the May sweeps on CBS’ best night in the ratings. The first will feature a profile of talk-show host Arsenio Hall, a story on the jury that convicted accused child-killer Joel Steinberg, and an interview with actor Gene Wilder about the death of his wife, Gilda Radner, from ovarian cancer. (The second program has not been set yet, but neither includes any re-creations.)

Although CBS has not yet announced its fall schedule, both Chung and Lack say that they have been given assurances from network executives that the program will be renewed. “We expect to be back next fall in the format as it has evolved,” said Chung.

“The specials sound like CBS’ attempt to turn Chung into Barbara Walters,” said one broadcasting executive. “I would imagine they’re the ‘pilot’ for next season.”

“We’re not going to just do celebrities,” said Chung, citing the Steinberg jury story. “What we’re doing in the specials is consistent with what we’ve been doing.”

And what about the re-creations? Although at one point this fall, according to CBS sources, several such segments were put on hold, most of them have eventually aired, from a piece on Three Mile Island that was produced with the cooperation of the power plant to a story about former California Gov. Pat Brown’s struggle with whether to send convicted criminal Caryl Chessman to the gas chamber.

The most controversial of the re-creations--on the death of activist Abbie Hoffman--has not been broadcast, however. Several people close to Hoffman protested the re-enactment. Citing what he says is a CBS News policy against talking about segments in progress, Lack would not say whether the Hoffman program will ever air. But there will be some re-creations on “Saturday Night” in the future, he said.